Oil spill: communication breakdown

A series of dispatch recordings between a San Francisco fireboat crew, the Coast Guard and local dispatch operators show a breakdown in communication among emergency personnel in the hour after a container ship struck a Bay Bridge tower on Nov. 7.

In the first call, a fireboat lieutenant tells a San Francisco dispatch operator that he learned about the crash from a member of the Army Corp of Engineers, who also is a former fireboat pilot who happened to be on the bay at the time. In the second call, a dispatch operator calls the Coast Guard and learns that the crash occurred an hour earlier. In other calls, fireboat crew members tell dispatch operators the Coast Guard does not need the crew’s assistance on scene and that the entire call has been canceled.